“Saudi Arabia’s king will visit Washington in early 2018, according to a White House readout on the monarch’s latest call with Donald Trump.The three-sentence statement did not elaborate on the substance of the US president’s conversation with King Salman bin Abdulaziz, other than to note the two leaders discussed “ways to continue advancing shared priorities, including enhancing security and prosperity in the Middle East”. However, it did state that the Saudi monarch had agreed to visit the White House “in early 2018″…….”

My very own global correspondent has added: Saudi King Salman will visit Trump early next year, if he is still king of Saudi Arabia. Otherwise the new king, so far slated to be his favorite son Mohammed Bin Salman (affectionately called MBS in the palace), will do the visit. The timing of the Washington pilgrimage/Hajj in that case will depend on if and when the new king replaces his father on the throne. It almost like a race: whether the royal visit precedes or follows the new king taking the throne. Some Saudi exiles who claim to know are betting that King Salman will not be king for long: some give him weeks, others give him only a few days from now.

My global correspondent also is not certain if the Saudi King will try to create a certain magic of the Riyadh Summit last May. That would require that he bring along a certain magical white ball (globe), and perhaps Generalissimo Sisi of Egypt as well, as per this following photo and my appropriate comments at the time—>

No, not this one below, this was just an irreverent Scandinavian mockery of some serious global Arabian/American magic of the May summit—>

It is also not clear whether the king will ask for a complete recreation of the magic of the Riyadh Summit in May. Complete with the Guru Stephen Bannon, Herr Doctor Sebastian Gorka (PhD), the all-male Arabian exotic sword dancers, and the other more fetching accoutrements.

During the Saudi-American Summit in Riyadh, President Trump, King Salman, and Generalissimo Sisi had some fun playing with their ball, or rather with one of their balls. Okay, playing with someone’s mysterious ball.

It was an eerie fluorescent white ball, made eerier by the three grown men fondling it for benefit of the cameras. I assume it was a Saudi ball, some Saudi’s ball, since it as hosted in Riyadh. Unless it was Trump’s, that he had donated one of his balls for that occasion of sorcery and witchcraft and magic.

Sorcery, witchcraft, and magic are activities that are punishable with death by beheading in Saudi Arabia. But anyone can play with their own ball as much as they want, apparently they can also play with someone else’s ball, provided it is done with consent.

That photo elicited reactions from all over the world. But some European reaction was the most succinct. The leaders of the five Nordic countries, decided to do their own show of sorcery, magic, and witchcraft. The leaders of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Iceland chose a better and more open setting, near some body of water, rather than in a dark room full of Wahhabi zealots. And they chose a colorful ball. Not sure whose ball it was, but could be any among the five leaders. Any four among the participating leaders.

And the Scandinavians looked more cheerful about it: the ball looks, shall we say, livelier. The Trump-Salman-Sisi ball-fondling looked like a grim affair, as expected. In spite of the dimmed lights.

Yemen is a problem the Saudis themselves have created. Yemen is already spilling over the border. An unmotivated army with the best Western weapons cannot seem to defeat the Houthi tribal guerrillas and the remnants of the Yemeni army. The army of the poorest Arab country outside Africa.

Not even after many months of indiscriminate bombing of towns and cities and the infrastructure. Not even with the help of hired and paid foreign mercenaries from South America and Australia and Africa, courtesy of the potentates of the United Arab Emirates. Not even with the dutiful help of the mighty Obama Administration in targeting and blockading and other logistics. They even have a couple of classic local Yemeni stooges pretending to run Yemen from hotels in Riyadh, presumably under the non-existent leadership of former president Generalissimo Hadi Al Zombie. General Hadi got a Kim-Jong-Un style 99.8% of the vote in elections organized by the Gulf princes (Bashar Al Assad got about 88% last year, Hassan Rouhani got less than 60%). Even as a 30-year old Saudi prince is trying to conduct a genocidal war against it, also from Riyadh.

The Saudis did not learn from their earlier 2009 attempt at military intervention in Yemen. That was a big failure. Now the new Yemen war is definitely spilling over into Saudi Arabia, into regions that were usurped and annexed from Yemen in the 1930s. The rugged Yemeni tribal guerrillas are not like the peaceful urban and village people of Bahrain of 2011. The Saudis and their allies and mercenaries have probably bitten more than they can chew this time. And they have strengthened AQAP and ISIS in Southern Arabia.

They should get out of the way and let the Yemenis settle their matters: unlike in Syria, there are no Iranian or Lebanese forces or militias in Yemen. Not yet. Foreign powers find it difficult to control the country. Resort to witchcraft and sorcery is banned by Saudi clerics, on the pain of death. So, they can only carpet bomb it and kill many of its innocent people.

Unless their hundreds of thousands of graduates of local Islamic Shari’a colleges and universities are working on a decisive secret weapon.